On the morning of 7 January 2015, two masked and armed men forced their way into the offices of the controversial French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris. They killed eleven people inside and shot dead a police officer on the pavement. Five others were killed and eleven were wounded in related shootings that followed in and around Paris the following days.

After a ferocious manhunt, French forces stormed two separate hostage sites on 9 January, killing all the hostage-takers. Four of the shoppers held inside a Jewish supermarket died in the siege. Al Qaeda in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attacks.

France raised its terror alert to its highest level and deployed extra soldiers to guard public buildings, streets, religious sites and metro lines. Meanwhile, millions of demonstrators took to the streets of Paris and beyond. An estimated two million people, including over 40 world leaders, gathered at a rally of national unity on 11 January.

The slogan ‘Je suis Charlie’ went viral on social media worldwide. The remaining staff of Charlie Hebdo placed the text on the cover of its next edition with a cartoon of a weeping Muhammad. The increased print run of seven million copies rapidly sold out.

In the aftermath of the massacre, France's National Observatory Against Islamophobia reported an increase in violence against Muslims. Mosques were hit by grenades and gunfire, while Muslim-owned businesses were targeted with bombs and racist graffiti. Despite warnings by senior politicians that the attackers should not be linked with France's millions of peaceful Muslims, over 60 incidents occurred within days of the attack on Charlie Hebdo.